BROOKLYN MUSEUM | 2008
Brooklyn, NY— The Fertile Goddess: Who is she? A goddess, a ritual object, a votive offering, a vehicle for working magic or fulfilling wishes, a talisman for protection, a teaching or initiation device, or simply an ancient woman's embodiment of herself? This exhibition, co-curated by Maura Reilly and Madeleine Cody, presented the Brooklyn Museum’s oldest sculpture, which represents a woman, made by people living in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) or Syria in the late fifth millennium B.C.E. She and other ancient female figurines with exaggerated or highly stylized female forms are small in scale but great in their ineffable power to capture the imagination of those who confront them. This exhibition showcased dozens of these figurines in an attempt to emphasize both their ubiquity throughout the western world, as well as their exquisite beauty.
